FAQ
How is FairTrip different from what's out there?
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What do you mean by "local and authentic places"?
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How can FairTrip allow me to support the local community?
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Will the places referenced on FairTrip cost me more?
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What's special about the places featured on FairTrip?
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How can FairTrip contribute to promote sustainable tourism?
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If more and more people start using FairTrip, wouldn’t it be likely to have a negative impact in the end for the referenced places?
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What happens if a referenced place changes and loses its local or authentic character?
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How is FairTrip different from what's out there?
FairTrip wants to encourage and simplify access to sustainable tourism for travelers everywhere in the world, starting by developing countries, through a free and easy to use mobile app that allows you to find local and authentic places that benefit the local community, and to share new places with other travelers.
FairTrip gets rid of third parties and makes sustainable and direct tourism possible, "from producer to traveler", which dramatically limits the costs and directly contributes to the local economy.
First, the FairTrip app is totally free. All places are directly accessible through a map, no need to sign up or create an account, and it's all free.
This way, FairTrip is different from travel agencies that sell sustainable trips usually for a pretty big amount of money, and without being able to know how much is going towards the local community.
FairTrip is also different in that way from tourist guides which require you to purchase a book or something which, in top of not being free, cannot contain all the information you'd like concerning sustainable and authentic places, nor can it be updated at a fast-enough pace.
Second, FairTrip is different from travel blogs or forums as all places are quickly and easily accessible in one place: the FairTrip app. Gone are those long online searches trying to find THE place!
And of course, all places are validated by the FairTrip team to make sure they follow our guidelines.
And third, FairTrip works offline and is with you anywhere you go. All places are saved locally and the map is stored in cache. Gone are those days you'd spend hours trying to find the right address!
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What do you mean by "local and authentic places"?
When you decide to travel far away, we think that it's to get a real change of scenery and discover new cultures. Unfortunately, we found out that it's actually quite difficult to find information in tourist guides or on the internet concerning authentic places. In order to find those, you usually need to go on an adventure, discover them yourself, which requires time, a luxury you cannot always afford when you're on a one or two-week vacation...
FairTrip solves this problem by putting together places that travelers discover for everyone to be able to quickly and easily find a local and authentic place.
Now let's get to the answer: for us, a local and authentic place is a place that is compatible with the cultural, natural and architectural local heritage.
In other words, giving some examples, a restaurant serving local cuisine, a Homestay in a traditional housing, or a place that respects the local architecture or does not alter the natural landscape are places that you will find on FairTrip.
On the contrary, a restaurant serving pizzas or burgers in Southeast Asia won't be approved on FairTrip as it is not in accordance with the local cuisine. A hotel built on a beach, altering this natural landscape, won't be approved. The same applies to a place featuring a pool in an area where people hardly have access to drinkable water. Activities created only to satisfy touristic needs and to which local people cannot have access will not be referenced on FairTrip either.
For more information, check out our guidelines that define which places can be referenced on FairTrip.
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How can FairTrip allow me to support the local community?
FairTrip is trying to feature local places that, either way are owned or run by people belonging to the local community, employ locals and pay them a fair wage, or give back a significant amount of their profits to the local community or use them towards actions in its favor.
The simple fact to spend the night at a local's house, to eat at a restaurant run by a local, to get your trekking trip organized by people from the area employing local guides and porters paid a fair wage and with decent working conditions, or to participate in an activity whose profits benefit the local communities are so many things that allow you to easily and directly contribute to the local economy and improve the local community's living conditions.
For more information, check out our guidelines that define which places can be referenced on FairTrip.
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Will the places referenced on FairTrip cost me more?
Absolutely not! Places referenced on FairTrip are way less expensive than the average tourist place in any given destination.
Let's take restaurants for example, they usually are local places or street restaurants made by the locals, for the locals, not to satisfy touristic needs. The consequence is that the cuisine is not only authentic and usually amazing, but you get to pay the local price, usually a dollar or two for a main dish in Southeast Asia for example, and the money directly goes to the local economy.
Now for homestays, they're usually small places that don't necessarily offer the best comfort, but for this particular reason, they are way cheaper, and allow you to support the local economy as well.
A word now concerning sustainable trips sold by some travel agencies: FairTrip gets rid of third parties and makes sustainable and direct tourism possible "from producer to traveler", dramatically limiting the costs and directly contributing to the local economy.
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What's special about the places featured on FairTrip?
First, places featured on FairTrip need to comply with our guidelines to make sure they are local and authentic, and if visiting those places can benefit the local community.
Second, all places are directly recommended by travelers who’ve been to those places and experience them.
Third, any place is welcome on FairTrip, from the small street restaurant to a night at a local's house with limited comfort. The most important being that they follow our guidelines for a fair, authentic and sustainable tourism.
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How can FairTrip contribute to promote sustainable tourism?
The FairTrip spirit is to travel responsibly by going in local and authentic places to directly contribute to the local economy and support the local community. It’s also to share those places with the FairTrip community to have a significant and sustainable impact.
Our vision is simple: adopting the FairTrip spirit, it’s making tourism responsible, sustainable and fair.
Over the long term, FairTrip’s objective is to create a dynamic for a true and deep change in the way we travel so that the tourism industry can truly become a lever of inclusive and sustainable economic growth as well as a vector of world poverty reduction.
We also think that by bringing cultures together, tourism can promote mutual understanding and help to consolidate peace in the world.
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If more and more people start using FairTrip, wouldn’t it be likely to have a negative impact in the end for the referenced places?
It’s one of sustainable tourism’s challenges: to promote a positive and sustainable development for the local communities. If each place needs to meet our guidelines before being referenced on FairTrip, it needs to keep meeting those guidelines afterwards. Every traveler can report a place that wouldn’t meet our guidelines anymore for us to evaluate if this place still has its place or not on FairTrip.
Now, if a place with a few tourists would have to face a strong tourist influx because of FairTrip, it would be great news for the local community which would have the opportunity to develop itself and improve its living conditions. The goal is that the new places that would emerge as a result of this influx would still meet the FairTrip guidelines in order to keep promoting sustainable tourism.
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How do you intend to monitor the referenced places to make sure they still meet the FairTrip guidelines?
First of all, FairTrip is your app. If according to you, a place doesn’t meet the FairTrip guidelines and doesn’t have its place on the app anymore, you can report it for us to take the necessary measures.
Over the long term, FairTrip also intends to put a direct control in place to make sure the places are still compatible with the FairTrip spirit and still meet our guidelines.
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What happens if a referenced place changes and loses its local or authentic character?
If a place doesn’t meet our guidelines anymore and is not compatible with the cultural, natural or architectural local heritage anymore, we will as far as possible alert the owner or manager of the place to give him or her the possibility to remedy the situation.
If the situation doesn’t get better and the place continues to be in discordance with our guidelines, it will be removed from FairTrip.